Washed Out.

I'm posting this, to expand a bit on the previous entry, but also to provide a bumper at the top of the blog. That monster of an entry is just terrible. And by posting this, I move it on down the line a little bit.

A very good friend of mine (an old, old friend actually) read that entry and wrote me one of the kindest, most personal, letter of reflection on that entry. She talked about losing love and how you never REALLY let it go. She talked about a love that she lost and how it affects her current life. And she talked about how we, as human beings, deal with that. Big things talked about in easily understood ways.

In my response to her, I mentioned my new theory on love. Something that I just recently put together. I thought I might recount it here and maybe some part of it will resonate with you. (You might've heard something like this before. It's new to me.)

Paul Simon says, "Losing love is like a window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart."

In my opinion, the love that we carry around and offer to other people is more like an old shirt. When I imagine it, I see a long sleeve, button down winter shirt. Very warm. Very strong. Stain Resistant, even.
When we first discover it and offer it to someone, the color is so vibrant and the material is strong. It's the kind of love that the recipient wants to show off to the world and never take off. A Big Love.
And then, as time passes and something goes wrong, as it often does, it's like a nick or fray of some of the threads. And a few repeated washings. And the color is a little dimmer and the material is not as strong.
After a long lifetime of this, the die fades almost completely and the shirt takes some serious damage. It bears long cuts that have been roughly sewn back together. And in some places, the material is so threadbare that it's barely holding together at all.
It may still be a very good shirt. And to someone, it may be repairable, wearable and worth the love that some very special people reserve for Old Things. But to the owner of that shirt, it's a faded out, washed out version of the thing that it used to be. Old pictures and love notes float around and you can see in them how young and vibrant the shirts color once was. Maybe only the owner of the shirt can appreciate how it has aged. And what has been lost.

As we get older, maybe this what we have to offer another human being.
Maybe this is an accurate reflection of how we emotionally age.
We start out so strong and vibrant and impervious. And thousands of angry words later, the small and big betrayals take their toll and you never do quite heal from them all. Some dings and scratches and missing chunks you carry around with you forever.

At least, this is how I feel about it today.
Ask me tomorrow and you may get a different answer altogether.

Maybe I need to stop listening to that damned Damien Rice CD...

Working all of this out,
Mr. B